One of the most important properties of radiation detectors is the detection sensitivity. The higher the sensitivity, the lower the level of radiation to which the patient needs to be exposed, in order to obtain a meaningful image. The sensitivity is strongly dependent on the stopping power of the detector. The stopping power of the detector is a function of the absorption coefficient of the material from which the detector is made, and the detector thickness. The absorption coefficient is an intrinsic property of the material of the detector, and it decreases very rapidly with the energy of the detected radiation. Thus, for instance, a detector made of a 5 mm. thick layer of Cadmium Zinc Telluride absorbs about 93% of incident 140 keV photons, whereas for 511 keV photons, as produced in electron-positron annihilation events, only about 20% are absorbed in such a thin layer.
Accordingly, in order to efficiently detect high-energy radiation, it is necessary to increase the detector absorption by increasing its thickness. This can be achieved in a number of ways. The simplest method is to increase the thickness of the detector layer, while maintaining the classic, prior art pixelated anode and single cathode geometry. This solution has a number of disadvantages.
Firstly, the probability of having defects in the crystal volume from which the detector is sliced increase dramatically with the thickness of the detector. Consequently, the production yield of such a detector is very low. A solution for this yield problem is described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/123,754 for “Semiconductor Gamma-ray Detector” by one of the present applicants. In this invention, there is described a stack of several layers of two dimensional detector modules, each module being divided into an array of separate pixelated detector cells, by means of the pixelation of the electrodes on the surfaces of the modules. However, because of the series current through all of the detector layers, the thickness of such a stack is limited.
Secondly, the location from which the detected Photons are emitted in a Gamma ray camera is derived from the detection location made in the depth of the detector. This is known as the Depth of Interaction (DOI), and only a knowledge of the DOI enables parallax effects to be eliminated and the correct spatial origin of the photons to be determined. The simple single slab detector described in the prior art is unable to able to determine the DOI. Furthermore, the stacked detectors disclosed in the above-mentioned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/123,754 cannot determine the particular layer in which the absorption takes place, since equivalently located pixels of all of the layers are connected in series. There are methods for deriving the DOI, such as that described in the article entitled “Position-sensitive single carrier CdZnTe detectors” by Z. He et. al., published in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, Vol. 388, (1997) pp. 180–185, but they are complex and inaccurate, especially when used in high energy detection schemes.
Thirdly, for a voltage V applied between anode and cathodes, the efficiency of charge collection is proportional to V/L2, where L is the detector thickness. The leakage current, on the other hand, is proportional to V/L. Consequently, if, in order to increase the absorption probability, the thickness L of the detector is increased by a given factor, in order to maintain the same charge collection efficiency, the applied voltage should be increased by the square of that factor. The result is a very high operating voltage, which is more difficult to generate and manage, and which may present a safety hazard. In addition, such an increase in the applied voltage causes the leakage current to increase by the same factor, and results in degradation of the detector energy resolution ability.
Fourthly, as a result of the increase in detector thickness, the transit time of the charge carriers across the detector may become longer than the time window used to identify a coincidence event between the two detectors of a PET Gamma camera. In such a case, it may be impossible to use coincidence methods as an electronic collimator. One way of solving this problem is described in co-pending Israel patent application No. 137,579. However the technique described in this application is not easy to implement.
Finally, when high-energy photons are detected in a thick detector, the probability of the occurrence of multiple events, by Compton scattering, may become comparatively significant, and such multiple events render it impossible to define the source location of the event producing the relevant detected photons.
In the PCT Application published as document No. WO 017670 for “Pixelated Photon Detector” to N. Wainer et al., there is described a detector arrangement providing a large absorption thickness, achieved by stacking a number of thin detectors, and directing the radiation onto the stack from its side, through the thin edges of the individual layers, rather than through the stack from one end towards the other, as is described in the above mentioned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/123,754. The layers of thin detectors are electrically unconnected, such that each layer can be used to provide impingement location information. In WO 017670, each of the thin detector layers has an array of anode strips running the length of the detector layer surface, in a direction generally parallel to the direction of impingement of the radiation to be detected. The two dimensional impingement location data is therefore obtained from a knowledge of the layer in which the photons, or most of the photons, are detected, thus providing location in one axis, and from a knowledge of the anode strip or strips in that layer in which the photons, or most of the photons, are detected, thus providing location data in the orthogonal direction.
This prior art detector therefore overcomes a number of the disadvantages and problems mentioned above with respect to simple thick detectors. It is thick, yet is made from thin slices, thus providing a good production yield. It should have high stopping power yet relatively low leakage current, since each layer has its own independent voltage applied. Its charge carriers have very little distance to travel, thereby avoiding problematic coincidence ambiguities, and finally, multiple events from effects such a Compton scattering are distinguished.
However, the described detector is unable to provide any Depth of Interaction information, and thus has no three dimensional detection capabilities. As a result, it cannot be usefully used in PET cameras, since without DOI information, parallax effects prevent the unambiguous determination of the location of the source of the emitted photons in the subject's body.
There is therefore an important need for a detector which will provide all of the above-mentioned advantages of a thick detector, but will provide three dimensional detection information, such that the depth of interaction within the detector can be uniquely determined.
The disclosures of each of the publications mentioned in this section and in other sections of the specification, are hereby incorporated by reference, each in its entirety.